Reasons Why I Am Not Married pt.1

I am in a dark place/ I can see
What is missing/ Is it me?


Rotimi Lijofi, Lekan Lijofi, me...

I'm the dude on the right...by the way.

So, on reasons why I am not married, I was originally going to break it down into 3 general posts...you know, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly format. But I decided to be more honest.
Linda Ikeji fired this up in my sphere of awareness, and I think it would be more entertaining if I set this post up according to the way I think every day...like a rubic's cube in the hands of a rhesus monkey on speed. Really -_-

I am culturally-displaced.
My understanding of culture goes hand-in-hand with my understanding of tradition. tradition is what we met other people doing when we were growing up, culture is what we do now.
I don't know what we are doing now. I really don't. I have been often accused (rightfully so) of living in my head, but that is because I am a creative so I jealously guard the influences on my mind (nothing offends me like the trite and common place).
I do not live in my head to the extent that I consider women to be perfect or flawless...impossibilities if you like, but I have certain things that I hold close to my heart based on how my mother raised me.

I am a gentleman. That word means so much more than gentle and it is a very important element in 'man'. It is derived from the root-word for noble. It means there are certain things that women go for, notice, expect, desire, want...things that I would never consider because I do not see the person next to me to be 'a tool'.

In Nigeria, in Lagos to be more specific (in my case), there are certain accepted norms and cultures that 'offend' my sensibilities. I do not look down or condemn the persons, my problem is with the misbehaviour and not the 'misbehaved'.

My first direct shock was in 2001. It was a watershed event in my life. I went through what a lot of other guys have gone through. Other guys got over it and moved on. My disappointment went very deep...because I am sensitive.

Not sensitive like a fragile flower, but sensitive a man who sees everything from as far back as to when the thoughts were considered before they were acted upon, as distinctly as knowing a genuine thought as opposed to a consideration substituted from other people's opinions (inception if you like...been dying to use that for a while now).

Now comes the gossip...


Everybody has that one friend (sometimes they are one and the same) who had his girlfriend or her boyfriend go all the way with a very close friend and it ruined so many things.
Some tough guys and girls just move on by either getting involved with someone else and staying
'friends' with the new couple or they 'beat the shit' out of the 'usurper' and leaving the ball in the court of the 'beloved' (sometimes forcing him/her to choose or get their own beating).
I did neither.

I could have forestalled it, taken preemptive measures as soon as I noticed my 'friend' at my girlfriend's house coincided with her period of cooling off me. This period was marked with her bringing up arguments that were such a sharp contrast from her personality, I could tell which of her friends and her sister's friends impressed their opinion of me on her (you know the type...smiles never reach their eyes, kindness and openness are signs of a weak mind to them and they never mind their own business but want to make sure girls get even before they are cheated on)

I did try to let him know that life is better with 2 friends rather than with an ex-friend and an ex-girlfriend. I was actually worried about her reputation in the school and asked that if he was still going to go through with it to give a bit of time before starting to date her (being a small campus and people being people, I hated the idea of people thinking she was being passed from friend to friend. I still shudder a bit about that impression). He shared my advice with her and she decided that it was better they started now rather than later.
I didn't recognise the place of manipulation in relationships. So I let everything go into freefall. If I could go back in time...I'd kick his ass very very hard. I had to settle with assaulting him psychologically (I don't claim to be without sin).

Well she chose him and both of them asked me to still be friends with them. I asked them for 2 days to consider their proposal.

I am a cool-headed chap (terribly English, for which I thank my mother...no sarcasm there) so I took a poll with people that I knew and they said there was nothing wrong with it. Some even expected such matters even in marriage.

A lady said,"I expect my husband to cheat on me. But so long as he takes care of me and the children, it doesn't really matter."

Another told me of the time her sister had something to do with a guy that she had something fleeting with (though she was still interested, but her strategy failed...I gathered that much from what she was 'not' saying) and how these things happen but they should not affect relationships.

It was someone who came in from my blind-side who told me something that made me realise that I was not mad or stupid or ignorant of my feelings. His contribution was unsolicited (serendipity in action).
He said being friends with your ex-girlfriend and a friend who she is now dating is 'f@#ked up' and it disregards you even further in the matter. Even if you do try that out, every time you 3 are together, it would be a terrible lie and everyone involved would be self-deceived.

So when I met up with them, I asked them separately if they felt there was anything wrong with the way things were going. She said 'yes', he said 'no'. That was what finalised my decision.
"You guys do what you want. I won't stop you. I'm interested in that. But if you are asking that i stay friends with you, you are asking for my agreement with this. I will die first before I give it. Do what you want to do, but do not involve me. If you see me don't offer me your hand, I won't shake it. Do not say hi, I won't reply. Have a nice rest of your life."
My words verbatim.

A very nasty rumor soon came up about me when their relationship hit a very rocky patch and the elements involved forced sex and shit I can't type without disbelief. I had to reestablish contact so that I could clear matter. It was not pleasant and I made it even more uncomfortable for them. I was not the guy they knew 3 months before. I'm still not that guy. That guy died, but not the gentleman in me.*

Before the bias settles in...you know the bias I am talking about. The bias that is based on assumptions of immaturity on my part, ignorance of what love really is, shallow feelings, unspoken sins and what not.

I loved her. The kind of love that I would have kept if she had kept me. The kind that wants to see her grow into a confident and independent woman. The kind that felt she would choose me over him as I would choose her over anybody else for the rest of my life. That I would have stood up for her in the danger of broken bones and ICU visits (someone gave her a nickname that she hated, she told him in front of me 3 times to stop, but he thought it was harmless. So I went to his room and straightened him out on the matter and he stopped. I don't remember if she noticed).

This was her test. She passed it. She wasn't for me and I knew. It was just very difficult to come to terms that I was more in the relationship than she was.
But hey, that's REAL for you: Remember, Everyone isn't Always Loyal.

10 years down the line, I remain teachable 'meek', accepting of people as they are, never faking the friendship or the smile, letting women know I want to know them better (honestly, I cannot have a relationship with someone who I do not connect with. Meat-puppet sex repulses me. Blame Kama-Sutra, the Perfumed Garden- the Arabian answer to the Kama-Sutra and a handful of ancient Chinese documents). To make love with the mind before the body is my way of bonding.

Women have gone through these types of scenarios. They assume a guy only wants them for their bodies, so they want to know what they will get in return so they do not lose out entirely. I do not know how to 'stand-out' as there are over 5 million other guys not having sex with them, and with 4,999,999 of them already asking 'How far?', my minority number doesn't really get a chance to be understood and connected with.

Before someone asks why I have not tried it the 'popular way', I did try it. I did. I was right. I hated it. I do not know how to not speak sweet pillow-talk as I lay next to the miracle of a person I just shared myself with. Everyone is a miracle to me.

But I do not know how people do it. I have dated German and other non-Nigerian women with a comfortable mutual understanding I thought I would never find. But distance and work get in the way.

I don't believe the talk that good girls like bad boys. Girls like boys, boys like girls. Who decides who is good or bad? Really? Culture? I do not blame women who want security. I never could. But I really don't think I could close my eyes and blindly follow any lady now.

I do not understand them. Music, movies, books, hobbies and habits...I prefer to sit at home than go clubbing. I would rather cook something adventurous than go out to buy a meal. I would prefer to listen to Ella Fitzgerald and other classic forms of music than 'I knack you akpako' or other forms of hip-hop, I would rather watch an old Akira Kurosawa movie (Yojimbo or Rashomon) than watch a Michael Bay movie (no insult to the man of fire and exaggerated explosions).

I rather know you than be distracted from you by a movie. It seems only mature women understand where I am coming from, but it is a taboo (hmph) for older women to date younger men.

Part 2 coming soon...after deliberations and confirming if this is an exercise in vain.

*She and I are now friendly, not friends, because she and I still can't bridge that thing that sits silently between us. I am not in contact with him because I do not want anything to do with him. I could and would cancel a business deal based on his involvement alone. That is how much of an ex-friend he is to me. I would not trust him with my trash. You think I'm harsh?

Beyonce and Rihanna: Jay-Z and dowry?

I just read this on chicago reader. I am worried about what side of our culture gets outside. I am shaking my head and wondering what the next surprise will be.


Beyonce and Rihanna (a 2008 video directed by Afam Okereke): The low-budget Nigerian film industry, or "Nollywood," is booming, and many of the trailers are on YouTube. I love the way that some of these films weave together characters from popular American music culture and issues relevant to traditional African culture. This film imagines Beyonce as a modern woman in Nigeria who must deal with her parents' traditional ideas about marriage and courtship. In one scene, Beyonce's parents argue that Jay-Z should be a proper man and pay Beyonce's dowry for marriage.

Why I Am Not Married prologue

The reason behind this post is an 'infamous' (as opposed to unpopular) article in PM news a daily evening paper in Nigeria by a lady simply referred to as Amara. The delightful Linda Ikeji (her blog is the 39th most read blog in a country of over 150 million) put  it on her blog and the comments came out of the wood work, dominated tweets and facebook statuses for a long while. It was mostly women being on the defensive, guys being on the offensive...weeeell, let us just say no one chose the middle ground. Women attacked women, men defended women, and in all of the emotional exchanges, not once did I come across a middle ground observer. Perhaps they got lost in the noise? Anyway, I realised that rather than just point at women and claim all sorts of reasons why they are not being sought after and married in a flash-flood of grooms to be, it would be nice for a guy to speak for himself. So I picked me (Vain? yeah, I guess. Presumptuous? definitely not ) because i have a stake in this. I am in my mid-thirties, my mother is already worried, my dad is understanding without really understanding, my siblings are 'perturbed', my friends are...right next to you reading this post and wondering what 'odd' thing i am about to say next. Odd, not inappropriate...that is me.

Here goes....

I am from a middle-class home that proved to me over a 41-year old marriage that love conquers all...literally (a decade long separation and reuniting is the evidence I have lived to see). My father is a Princeton-trained civil engineer and Columbia State-trained architect. My mother is an Ahmadu Bello University-trained geographer and a Rutgers University-trained Educator (she teaches teachers). As if the 'intellectual pressure is not enough, I am the first son (the first sign of my father's strength according to Mosaic- tradition). I have 2 sisters, a brother, a brother-in-law, a niece, and lots of relatives. I come from a culture where a man at my age is preparing his mind to be a grand-father within a decade or so. I'm not even preparing myself to be a father as at this time.
I was a banker for a bit, but I dumped the job when I saw the recession tsunami a year away (I am sorry, but if you were in the financial industry at the time and you claimed not to see the trouble coming from a distance, you were lying to yourself...and you bought it).
So I am a writer (I supplement with voice-over work...my baritone voice is silky smooth and a sound-engineer's wet technical-dream come true, but that is for another article). As a Lagosian before I am a Nigerian, I actually do 9 other things very well, and I won't go into that.
Note that all of these things describe my background, but do not describe why I am not yet married...or does it?

I believe in love. Not that stupid hybrid of lust and any combination of a misplaced sexual fantasy (or more) popularly associated with reckless irresponsibility. I am a man who is 'decided' on matters of love, because I believe love is a decision, not a feeling, or a mood, or a 'vibe'. That sort of thinking is for the fickle-minded who are not ready to make a life together with another, but just want the excitement without the 'growth pains' that come with sticking to another person.
My decisions about love are simple:
No one but God comes before my wife...not even the children, all 8 of them. ;)
If my wife is in trouble, I am in trouble.
No man may disturb, harass, intimidate, heckle, insult, or harm my wife without expecting reprisals from me. If you touch me to my 'bone' I will break your own. (I learned that from my father)
My wife is allowed room to fart (awake or asleep), be annoying (everyone else is), be unreasonable, get angry, want to be left alone, want to have her own thing (business, bank account, and other little things that help her to establish her own identity)...and she should make the same room for me.
My wife may expect my hand in disciplining the children (but I tend to spoil them, no matter their age, but I will work on that).
My wife can expect my thoughts and feelings to be with her, no matter where I am.
My wife's happy laughter is my balm, her smile is my anchor, her happiness is my drive, her joy is my goal, and her tears fire me on to ask if I should act or sit quietly with her.
I have my father to thank for the lessons the taught about what a husband must be to his wife. I learned them when he did not realise I was paying attention, listening, watching.


I would love to say that I am not married by choice, but that would be misleading.
You see, I have a type. My parents are their type, even when they seem not to know it. My type is not an angelic version of the impossible, improbable or just plain unrealistic.

Forgive me if I seem to be rambling...I just have a pain inside. I thought I had it all locked down and would not make room to compromise on her happiness, but I failed to ask if she would do the same for me. Then I also realised that I was not married to the girl/woman I loved at the time and so she might have thought it was all a gimmick to put her guard down, so I was paying for the crimes of another or maybe I wasn't her type.

I will sort this all out when I write the first of the 2 articles to follow this.

But a cliffhanger:
Girls seek security (money), boys seek attention (sex)...what do men and women seek? Is it a cultural thing? Or is the banker lady marrying a mechanic (true story!) a fantasy outside of the Caribbean? (Yeah. It happened. Yeah. They are happy. No. Juju is not involved).

The Point of Not Having A Point

Every human being that has reached the age of 'assumed' maturity, has gone through a stage in his/her life where all things revolved around said person. Then at about 6 months, they begin to realise most of the world doesn't care if anything is wrong. As they grow older, they long to relive those days when all it took was a cry to have the world (or mommy) come running to 'fix' things.
Sadly some are yet to make peace with this when they have some measure of power.
Maturity, I think, has a parameter based on how one handles frustration. They can't handle it, so they pass it on to other people.
I have decided that they are not worth it. Aside from exercising my maturity (which is under-developed...a natural short-coming amongst writers because they are ego maniacs overt or covert, basing their lives on works of fantasy rather than meat-&-potatoes reality), I really don't think they are worth it.
Why?
Because as Gnarlz Barkley puts it,"Who cares?"
So if I tell you that things will get much better, I mean you will better handle that God-given gift of selective-apathy.
There is no conclusion for this matter.
I've chosen my path, now I have to commit to it. Mine is the path of...me.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.

A Loss of Self-sacrificing for the bigger picture

These past 4 weeks have been grueling for me. Very gueling. It wasn't like I was not going to be compensated for the inconvenience, but I tell you, sometimes I felt like lying down to die...literally. My composition is not weak, or fragile, but I do not pity myself or treat myself much, if at all. I drive myself without regard to rest, food or healthy living....so when I find myself in very tough situatuins for long, my body vexes with me.
Glad to say I've been taking care of my body.
But there has to be easier ways to make as much if not more.
Till next time.

So this is what it feels like?

I've found myself awake (again) & thinking (again). But this time, my considerations stray ti the thoughts of fatherhood.
I have seen 2 examples, up close & too personal, of what it means to be a parent. Delightful cherubs can never be prepared for enough. They take your presence for a guarantee of immortality, they blame you for their not being invulnerable, & to add insult to injury, they question why you sqwak vehemently when they literally tempt fate in your presence.
I accept that children are not to be quiet, but to make as much noise as possible, but then no child is generic.
The best child I saw this weekend had his mug covered in Cerelac, sitting on his mother's lap as she hawked vegetables at Bariga market, Lagos.
I caught his eye & smiled at him, as I often do, and he returned my gesture with a toothless grin so cute, I almost burst out cooing at him. But I remembered the social distance between his mother/guardian & I.
I'm not a snob, but I believe I owe myself the responsibility of shielding myself from being insulted due to misunderstanding my attempts at mesalignment. And it has happened in the past. Won't try it again any time soon, if ever at all.
So kids, they are a cause for pause to me. I adore them, just not sure if I can live with them.
Well, now I'm off to take a shower and love myself till I'm clean, dry and ready to sleep.